Hellenic Exchanges Athens Stock Exchange SA

ATHEX:EXAE

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Popi, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Athens Exchange Group Conference Call to present and discuss the first half 2023 financial results. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nikolaos Koskoletos, CFO; and Mr. Stelios Konstantinou, Head of Investor Relations. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.

[Stelios Konstantinou, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to those of you listening to us from the other side of the Atlantic. We would like to present the financial results of the group for the first half of 2023, which were published yesterday and are available in the IR section of our website, and then as always take any questions that you might have.

But first, I'd like to pass the floor on to Nick for some general comments. Nick?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Stelios. Good afternoon to all. As we usually do, I think it's important to go through some market statistics and highlights that we've witnessed so far. So you probably know the average daily traded value increased by 22% in the first half of 2023 to EUR 111 million versus EUR 91 million last year. Specifically, market activity started the year strong. First quarter, we had -- we clocked in at EUR 113 million and the second quarter at EUR 109 million. And basically, maintaining the momentum that we saw in the first quarter.

The second half of last year was softer in terms of trading activity. And I think that's something important to highlight at close to EUR 58 million that's approximately half of this year's run rate. So we do expect some strong performance in comparison for the second half of this year, barring any unforeseen events. And the point in case, July clocked some EUR 94 million of trading activity versus a much weaker comparison of last year. The average market cap stood 17% higher than in the first half of last year.

If we were to break that down, we see that the listed banks market cap increased by 40% while the market cap of the rest of the market increased by 12%. And again, the levels of which we are trading are notably higher than last year. Last year, the average market cap in July was just under EUR 60 billion, whereas now we're just -- we're over EUR 85 billion. Going forward, we're all reading about the prospects of several new listings with the airport being the most notable one in terms of size.

Another key point of showcase here is that operating expenses were up 15% in the quarter and that's lower than the 19.5% which basically confirms our overall guidance that the rate of increase will subside as the year progresses. Personnel costs are up 23%. But this year's first half figure basically reflects a change in our policy with regards to the provisions that we're making versus our remuneration policy. As opposed to booking the number in the fourth quarter, which we historically have been doing, we now accrue the provision given our operating performance in the period, and basically, we do that to smooth out the effect.

A like-for-like comparison would suggest a run rate for personnel remuneration of just over 17% in Q1, 14% in Q2, and that basically brings the number for the first half at 16% versus the reported 23%. And again, this is if we were to control for the change in policy. Again, something that we had talked about is the fact that there's -- in the first half, we would be witnessing the annualized impact both of the increase of the FTE count and some wage adjustments that took place in the second half of -- predominantly in the second quarter and the second half of the year.

So the first half of this year, we had basically the annualized impact of that, and that is expected to smooth out and basically decline as the year progresses. Other than that, as we've discussed in the past, we expect OpEx overall to reach a near double-digit figure for this year. We are rightsizing our IT structure and constantly investing in our cybersecurity as well as beefing up our marketing expenses to promote the Greek Capital Market and broaden the investor base.

As you know, in June, we paid a EUR 0.15 per share dividend, and we will continue to reward shareholders as we've consistently been doing. Strategically, we remain steadfast on implementing our plan to boost market activity and breaking the vicious circle the market was trapped in. We are consistently discussing with stakeholders on working on the prospect of regaining developed market status while both improving revenue from services and, at the same time, becoming more efficient by improving our operating model.

I'll stop here and let Stelios go through our performance in more detail, and I'll be happy to take any questions at the end of the call. Stelios?

[Stelios Konstantinou, executive]

Thanks, Nick. So let's start with the overview of our first half 2023 financial performance at the top. The consolidated turnover of the group in the first half of 2023 was EUR 22.9 million compared to EUR 19.6 million in the first half of last year, up 17%. Diving deeper, we see that trading base revenue i.e., from trading and post-trading was up 27% on the back of a 22% increase in ADTV in the cash market in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

Market CapEx revenue, i.e., from listings and services to issuers was up 11% on a 17% increase in the average capitalization of the market. And revenue from services i.e., data services, market data that is IT, digital and ancillary services was down marginally 0.9%. So let's look at the top line into a little bit more detail.

Revenue from trading represents 19% of total consolidated turnover in the first half of this year, was up 24% at EUR 4.3 million compared to EUR 3.5 million last year.

Revenue from post-trading made up 45% of total turnover and amounted to EUR 10.3 million compared to EUR 7.8 million in the first half of 2022, up 29%. And this increase in turn is due to a 75% increase from settlement, a 33% increase from derivatives clearing and a 24% increase from stock sharing. The large increase in settlement revenue, be that plus 75% I just mentioned, is in turn mostly due to increased fees from OTC transactions which are up 600,000.

As far as revenue from the derivatives market, both trading and post-trading is concerned. In the first half of this year, trading activity, measured by the average daily number of contracts increased by 27% to 50,700 contracts compared to 39,800. Revenue from derivatives was up 33% with the average revenue per contract flat at EUR 0.217 compared to EUR 0.218 per contract.

Our fees for derivatives contracts depending on the type of investor, the product being traded and the prices of the underlying securities. And as a result, market volumes and our revenue rarely go hand-in-hand. Lastly derivatives trading and post-trading revenue in the first half of the year was EUR 1.36 million compared to EUR 1 million last year, and that corresponds to 9% of total trading and post-trading revenue.

Moving on. Revenue from listing makes up 12% of total turnover, and this line includes the quarterly subscription fees paid by listed companies, fees on rights issues, IPOs and other services to issuers and came in at EUR 2.7 million, up 11% compared to the first half of 2022. Revenue from Data services makes up 8% of total turnover and includes the fees that we collect from data vendors for the provision of Athens Exchange Market Data. The fees that we collect from market data depend essentially on the market -- on the number rather of data terminals to which these data vendors disseminate ATHEX market to and in the first half of 2023 were up by 0.4%.

Revenue from IT and digital services makes up 14% of total turnover and includes revenue from digital services, infrastructure and technological solutions to the Energy Exchange Group and Boursa Kuwait. And this category also includes revenue from services such as Electronic Book Building, AXIAline, AXIA e-Shareholders Meeting. Colocation and some others. And revenue from IT and digital services was down 2.5% to EUR 3.24 million compared to EUR 3.32 million in the same period last year.

Finally, revenue from ancillary services makes up 2.5% of total turnover and in the first half of 2023 was up 4.6%. Ancillary services include revenue from support services to the Energy Exchange, some rental income and others.

Moving now to the expense side. Total operating expenses increased by 15% in the first half of the year to EUR 12.4 million compared to EUR 10.8 million. If we break that down, we see that personnel costs are up 23% in 2023 at EUR 6.9 million compared to EUR 5.6 million. However, as Nick mentioned, the 2023 figure is not comparable due to the provision this year of bonus provision.

All other expenses increased by about EUR 320,000, i.e., by 6%. And most of this increase is accounted for by increases in consulting fees and for some promotional expenses. Overall utility costs are down 3% with energy costs normalizing. Personnel, remuneration and expenses account for 56% of total operating expenses compared to 51% in 2022. Head count at the group -- at the end of June 2023 was 246 compared to 225 at the end of the same period last year.

Turning now to the bottom line. The earnings before interest and taxes of the group increased by 34% to EUR 7.7 million compared to EUR 5.7 million in the first half of last year. In the first half of last year, we had extraordinary income of EUR 625,000, resulting from a favorable court judgment concerning the return of tax and penalties that were -- that were assessed following the tax audit for fiscal year 2008, 2009 and 2010. And we have appealed to have a further EUR 270,000 return to us.

Plus, the net after-tax earnings of the group amounted to EUR 5.6 million, and that's up 22% compared to the first half of last year on a reported basis. In 2023 and 2022, the nominal corporate income tax rate was 22% with the effective tax rate on consolidated earnings in the first half of this year at 22.2% compared to 21.8% in the first half of last year.

On the balance sheet, the cash and cash equivalents of the group on June 30, 2023, was EUR 60 million compared to EUR 60.6 million at the end of 2022, with approximately 28% of the cash, i.e., about EUR 16.6 million being kept at the Central Bank, the Bank of Greece. The interest rates have been inching upwards as you all know. So we expect some additional interest income from the cash that we keep, which in the first half of 2023 was EUR 207,000 compared to EUR 44,000 in the first half of last year.

Also on the balance sheet, we have -- we show a further EUR 282.4 million, which we recorded both an asset and a liability, and these are third-party cash assets and concerned margins that our subsidiary AthexClear receives from its members in the cash and derivatives markets.

And with that, I'd like to conclude our comments on the first half financial results of the group. And now we're happy to take any questions that you might have. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Alevizakos, Alevizos with Axia Ventures.

[Alevizos Alevizakos, analyst]

Thank you very much for the presentation. Well done for another good set of results. I've got a couple of questions plus a follow-up, if I may. The first question is regarding the bonus accrual that you already mentioned. I just wanted to know, first of all, from an accounting perspective, why did you decide to move it forward in the second quarter and not take it in the fourth quarter as it would have been more customary. But given that, I suppose, a big chunk of it is discretionary. And then the second question is regarding the cash flow.

I was looking through the CapEx. And it feels like the run rate of CapEx for the first half of the year is just below EUR 1 million, which seems kind of low compared to the expectations that we had. So I wanted to reconfirm what is the CapEx expectation for the full year? And I've got a follow-up as well.

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Thank you, Alevizos. We wanted -- our fourth quarter historically has been quite choppy and that's something that we wanted to eliminate and smooth out throughout the year. Yes, obviously, there is a discretion there with regards to what the Board at the end of the day will actually remunerate. We are going conservatively with regards to the actual provision of our remuneration policy. But again, it's to eliminate that choppiness in the fourth quarter. That's one. And two is with regards to the CapEx that you mentioned, yes, there's been another execution so far this year.

And overall, we're looking at, as we've talked about, EUR 7 million to EUR 8 million over the next 2 years that we've talked about. There is going to be a ramp-up. We expect to have a ramp-up in the second quarter -- sorry, in the second half of the year. Now if we're going to hit the EUR 4 million, EUR 4.5 million number that we've been talking about, if we don't, then there's probably going to be a pickup in the following year, but again nothing material overall.

So there's a step-up over what we've historically been doing, but nothing materially different. There's a lack of execution for internal reasons. It's just a timing issue that we haven't picked up in the first half of the year, but it's most -- we expect it to be recuperated in the second half. Hopefully, that answers your question.

[Alevizos Alevizakos, analyst]

And one quick follow-up, probably quite interesting for the whole market. I mean post the Greek elections and the result that came with the government continuing for another 4 years. Have you seen any meaningful change in the split of foreign investors versus locals? Have you got anything to share in either qualitative or quantitative?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

No. I think the market dynamics still tend to exhibit the same characteristics that it had. So predominantly foreign trading. And then there's the split between retail and domestic institution. We are -- we do follow the number of active accounts overall, but that's something that kind of deviates. Again, speaking of choppiness. One month, you can be at 22,000, 24,000 and then another month being at 28,000. And then you can have retail fluctuating anywhere between 12,000 to 17,000, 18,000. So nothing significantly different so far.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Kourtesis, Iakovos with Piraeus Securities.

[Iakovos Kourtesis, analyst]

The question has to do with the bonus, the provision you took in the second quarter of the year. You could share with us what is the absolute number that you took as provision in the second quarter of the year. And would you expect to take -- is this the whole provision? Or would you expect to take another provision, a smaller one, obviously, during the fourth quarter of the year?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

So yes, maybe it wasn't clear. What we do is that we take a provision given the actual performance of the specific period. Our remuneration policy is very explicit with regards to how the variable remuneration is calculated as a percentage of EBIT. And then basically, what we do is depending on the performance of that year -- of -- sorry, the performance of the period, that's what we take the provision for.

So it's something that happened in the first quarter, second quarter, will happen in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Just to give you a glimpse of what most likely will materialize is at the fourth quarter, the personnel remuneration figure will be a very low number, I don't know, it might even be negative. But I'm just saying that it's to smooth out the choppiness. So it's something that we do every quarter we'll be taking. It's not obviously the annual amount. It's depending on the performance of that quarter. We will take that provision as per the remuneration policy.

[Iakovos Kourtesis, analyst]

So you are going to split it in every quarter and this is what will happen from now and going forward every year?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Yes. That happened in the first quarter or second quarter, correct?

[Iakovos Kourtesis, analyst]

Okay. And what's the number in the first half of the year?

[Nikos Koskoletos, executive]

Well, the remuneration policy talks about 10% of EBIT. So it would be just over $700,000.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.

[Stelios Konstantinou, executive]

Thank you for participating at this call on the 1st of August. There are better places that you could have been. We wish you a great remainder of the summer, and we will speak again at the end of -- towards the end of November for the 9-month results. Thanks again.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.